The present invention relates generally to improvements in cameras incorporating an electronic flash unit, or in cameras with which a separate electronic flash unit is associated and it relates more particularly to an improved indicating device for use in a camera of the above type, which device may indicate the completion of the charge of the main capacitor in the flash circuit, along with whether or not the brightness of an object to be photographed is over or under a predetermined level.
The Japanese Utility Model Application published with the Publication No. SHO 49-23869 describes a device which provides the foregoing two types of indication. According to this conventional device, when the brightness of an object is under a given level, then an indicator lamp is lit, and when a main capacitor in an associated flash circuit is charged to a given charge voltage, then the lamp is extinguished. As a result, for example, in the case of the main capacitor being charged irrespective of the brightness of an object for utilizing the flash light as an auxiliary light with the daylight photography, even if the charge on the main capacitor is insufficient, the lamp remains unlit, when the brightness of the object to be photographed is over a given level. In addition, the indicating device provides an indication representing a normal condition, when the lamp is extinguished, so that the photographer cannot discriminate between the case where the lamp remains unlit, under normal operating conditions of the indicating means and the case where a lamp remains unlit due to an insufficient power source voltage or a defect in the indicating device, and thus the photographer cannot properly determine the true cause.
Thus, the indicating device of the nature explained above as well as other such indicating devices heretofore available and proposed leave much to be desired.